Monday, April 10, 2017

The phrase motorcycle profiling has appeared in the news at least three times in the last five days.

The term came up twice in press coverage
about a couple of photo opportunities in Austin, Texas over the
weekend. The bikers were members of the now Bandidos-free Texas
Confederation of Clubs and Independents. They were there to show their
support for a couple of bills that will make life safer and easier for
motorcyclists in the Lone Star State. One of them would permit Texas
bikers to split lanes at very low speeds in traffic jams and the other
would permit bikers to make safe left turns at red lights – as if the
lights were only stop signs.

But most of the attention went to a Texas law that hasn’t been written yet – a law that would forbid “motorcycle profiling.”

Profiling

Motorcycle profiling is a comparatively
new term – borrowed from the more commonly argued concept of “racial
profiling.” Motorcycle profiling is a kind of stereotyping. It is
assuming that someone must be a criminal because he is riding an
American motorcycle with a V-Twin engine or because he is wearing real
or ersatz motorcycle club insignia. The argument against profiling
assumes, usually correctly. that police have an implicit bias against
people who look like bikers.

That biker look itself has become a
commodity. A quick trip down to the nearest Harley dealership can prove
that. And, it can be argued that profiling occurs because police feel
challenged by bikers – because men who look like bikers tend to be
libertarian alpha males – and very many cops feel free to use their
police powers to dominate and harass men who are not particularly
impressed with symbols of authority like badges. At its core “motorcycle
profiling” is about social control. And there are very many people who
see biker profiling as a civil rights issue that can fixed by passing
some laws.

Voices

One of them is Will Dulaney, who last
Sunday identified himself to the press as the president of the Hell on
Wheels Motorcycle Club at a rally in Round Rock. Four hundred people
were there so the world could see they were mad as hell and not eager to
take it anymore. “If you wear a patch, you better have some bail
money,” Dulaney said.

“This is not about one club. This is not
about what happened in Waco two years ago. This is about what’s
happening all over the country and here in Texas. Profiling is really
getting to epidemic levels,” Dulaney told Austin television station KEYE.
“We are absolutely the people who are having these civil liberties
trampled upon – our right to associate, our right to congregate, our
right to ride our motorcycles free and unfettered,”

Ron “Bone” Blackett of the Texas COC&I told KEYE
he thinks people died at the Waco Twin Peaks in May 2015 because of
motorcycle profiling. “They can’t stand here with us and celebrate the
healthy side of all of this, and that hurts,” Blackett said.

The next day, Steve “Dozer” Cochran, a
member of another bikers rights group called US Defenders, complained to
television station KVUE about being stopped and harassed by
police. “They’re not going to give you a ticket one, but what they do is
make you undress and take pictures of all your tattoos. They want to
know what motorcycle club you’re in, what you’re doing and where you’re
going. And first of all, that’s none of their business.” Cochran told KVUE the harassment has gotten worse since the Twin Peaks biker brawl.

AMA

The most surprising statement about
motorcycle profiling came yesterday from the American Motorcyclist
Association, It is surprising because the AMA invented the rationale for
biker profiling. Shortly after the Hollister motorcycle “riot” in 1947,
E.C. Smith, the Executive Secretary of the AMA called the Hollister
bikers “outlaws” and asserted that they represented only “one percent”
of the motorcycling community at most. Young bikers everywhere took to
the romantic term “outlaw” and liked to think of themselves as “one
percenters.” Within a year, police in Riverside, California had coined
the acronym “OMG.”

Eventually that one percenter, outlaw
style came to epitomize everybody on a Harley. The style became a
commodity for hustlers as diverse as Harley-Davidson Motor Company
salesmen and FX television executives to sell. Yesterday the AMA renounced the stereotype it helped create 70 years ago.

“The American Motorcyclist Association
Board of Directors has adopted and issued an official position statement
objecting to the profiling of motorcyclists by government agencies,
including judging riders on their chosen apparel, mode of transportation
or associates, rather than specific behavior and actions,” a press
release announced.

“The American Motorcyclist Association
has long advocated for the rights of motorcyclists and the motorcycling
lifestyle,” the 209 word position paper begins. “The AMA, in diligently
scrutinizing government policies directed at motorcyclists, is concerned
over motorcyclist profiling. This includes motorcycle-only checkpoints
and what is a predisposition in many cases of law enforcement officers
targeting motorcyclists solely because they are wearing
motorcycle-related clothing.”

“The AMA strongly condemns the profiling
of motorcyclists by government agencies and has long championed the
undeniable fact that the vast majority of riders and enthusiasts are
upstanding, law-abiding citizens. Motorcyclists and motorcycling
enthusiasts represent the full range of Americans and should be judged
on their specific behaviors and actions, not their chosen mode of
transportation or association with others.”

The only constants in history are irony and change. The world keeps turning.